


Castiel's 1st Birthday

by MisfitLoner101



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ball Pit, Birthday, Birthday Cake, Birthday Decorations, Birthday Fluff, Birthday Party, Birthday Presents, Castiel Gets New Clothes (Supernatural), Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Confused Castiel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Has a Crush on Crowley, Dean goes all out, Dean loves to mess with Castiel, Drinking, Hex Bags (Supernatural), I guess Sam has eating issues, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Nervous Sam Winchester, Party Games, Pin the tail on the donkey with a twist, Prizes, Protective Castiel (Supernatural), Sam Winchester Has a Crush on Castiel, Sam has bad memories, Sam is chased, Sam is followed, Sam is part of the treasure hunt, Sam picks out a birthday date for Castiel, Supportive Dean Winchester, The Author Regrets Everything, Treasure Hunt, When does it end?, silver bullets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-04 04:54:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisfitLoner101/pseuds/MisfitLoner101
Summary: Sam chooses a day to celebrate Castiel’s birthday.





	1. October 30th

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this took an unsuspecting turn. I was not expecting this to be so long and in the end, I have to write a second chapter (didn’t want to end on a cliffhanger), and possibly even more chapters to come.
> 
> Did you know there are actually Supernatural games to play at birthday parties, cause I sure didn’t until I wrote this and made Dean delve into birthday games.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam chooses a day to celebrate Castiel’s birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took a turn. I was not expecting this to be so long and in the end, I have to write a second chapter (didn’t want to end on a cliffhanger), and possibly even more chapters to come.
> 
> Did you know there are actually Supernatural games to play at birthday parties, cause I didn’t until I wrote this and made Dean delve into birthday games.

*** * ***

Sam doesn’t know how the conversation steered the way it did but suddenly Dean was annoyed and Castiel uncertain. “Jesus, Sam, if you care so much then you choose,” Dean snaps.

“Fine,” Sam turned away to think but he already knew the answer, but he didn’t want them to think he thought a lot about this before, which he did, so many times. “October thirtieth,” he says after a moment.

“The day before Halloween?” Dean says confused.

Sam shrugs, “Yeah.”

“Why don’t you just pick Halloween?”

Sam rolled his eyes, “You forfeit any opinions. You told me to choose and I choose October thirtieth as Cas’ birthday.”

“What the hell ever, man, this is so stupid,” Dean says.

“We get to celebrate it in a month and a half,” Sam explains.

“I don’t understand why I need one. I’m an angel,” Castiel says.

“Let’s just call it a weird human thing and leave it at that. Do you want anything for your new birthday?” Sam asks.

“No,” Cas answers taking a sip from his beer.

“Jeez, we’re gonna celebrate it?” Dean groans.

“Of course, we celebrate yours and mine, even if it’s just beer and a slice of pie or cake and a present or two. It’ll be fun!”

Sam decided later he might have been a little drunk, but it was all decided anyway. Sam kept asking the angel what he wanted and was answered the same way: “Nothing in particular.” “I don’t need anything.” “I don’t have anything in mind.” “I don’t see why I need presents at all.”

He thinks Castiel is getting pretty annoyed with him now and was no help, so Sam surfed websites for items or _ anything _ really the angel might like. He thought of bees, honey, plants, clothes, even weapons or hunting stuff. He could get him a fancy handgun, something like his Taurus or Dean’s handgun or maybe a new tie. _ Maybe a bee tie, he might like that, _ Sam thinks. On the side, Sam searched for angel stuff; glass angel figurines, tree toppers, jewelry, fake wearable angel wings. Clothes with angel wings piqued Sam’s interest incredibly.

“Hey, Cas, can I check the tag on your shirt?” He asks him one day.

Castiel tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Alright.”

Sam steps closer, leans over the smaller man’s shoulder and looks at the tag of the button-up. He wants to wrap his arms around Cas because it’s so close to a hug already. He quickly tucks the tag back and steps away with a smile. Castiel smelled of ozone and thundershowers. More nervous than he thought he was going to be, he says, “Thanks, Cas,” and runs away, heart-pounding, maybe that was a mistake. Castiel stood stiff and confused as the tall hunter retreated.

Back in his room, Sam hesitantly buys a pair of shirts and thinks he’ll just stash them in his room if he chickens out later.

Sam bought four items now and is still searching for more.

*** * ***

“Have you got him anything, yet?” Sam asks his brother when they’re alone.

“What?”

“Cas, Dean. Have you got him anything for his birthday, yet? It’s like three weeks away.”

“No, of course not. What could he possibly want?”

“Jeez, Dean, it’s basically his first birthday and you’re not getting anything for him?”

“First birthday, huh?” Dean smirks.

“Uh, fuck. I’m gonna apologize to Cas later. What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” Dean grins, it’s obviously not nothing. “I’ll grab the cake.”

“Don’t put babies on it, Dean!” Sam hisses.

Dean blinks, “Damn, that’s an even better idea.”

“Oh God,” Sam rubs his forehead. “I’m just gonna stop talking with you about this.”

“Why? You’re having some great ideas, man. What did you get him?” Sam shrugs and Dean rolls his eyes. “I know you got something, more than something, _ somethings _. Plural, Sam. You keep leaving and coming back with a package. How much shit did you get for him already?”

Sam frowns, ducks his head a little, “I don’t know what to get him… so a little bit of everything? I’m not telling you, you’re just gonna have to wait until he opens them.”

Dean rolls his eyes again, “I should’ve known you were gonna go all out on this, this is Cas we’re talking about, of course, you would.”

“Shut up, Jerk,” Sam gets up.

“Bitch.”

Castiel hurries away when he hears Sam come towards the hallway.

*** * ***

Sam adds another two items to his pile and can’t wait for next week to come.

*** * ***

When Sam woke up the morning of October 30th he stands groggily in the library trying to comprehend all the ‘Happy 1st Birthday’ shit strung up. Dean, Sam knew was at fault here. He went all out on decorating. Blue and white streamers were wrapped down the railings of the stairs and around the poles of Library. Balloons were blown up and tied around at the top of the bunker stairs and the bottom and several other things around the library and the map room. 

Sam’s really not surprised at all with the decorations that also flood the kitchen too. He _ is _ surprised though that Dean put in the effort to go out and buy the stuff and actually decorate everything. He wonders how he did this without Cas watching.

He takes a moment to gawk at the decorations in the kitchen and Dean smirks. He’s already dressed and wide awake. Sam wants to ask how long it took Dean to do this, but Dean shoves a warm mug in his hands and he’s lost in the bliss of the smell of fresh coffee and takes a sip even though it’ll burn his tongue.

“Drink your coffee then go get your billions of gifts and throw them onto the table with mine.” Dean jerked a thumb at the simply wrapped gift shaped like a bottle. Sam immediately guesses alcohol. “Not billion,” Sam grunts and moves sluggishly to the table and drops heavily in the seat. “Where’s Cas?”

“Oh, I sent him on a supply run a while ago, beers and other stupid little things. I kinda suspected he’d be back by now, I wouldn’t have rushed with all this,” he waves his hand around gesturing all the streamers and balloons and banners. Sam grunts and vaguely wonders if Dean had more decorations he was gonna put up if he did have the time.

Sam sits and drains his coffee before getting up to change into his day clothes, fix his hair and brush his teeth, and grab his presents from his room. When he makes it back to the kitchen, Cas is there playing tug of war with Dean over the packs of beer and plastic bags. “Dean,” Cas hisses, tugging it back towards him.

“Let go, shut up, and sit down before I knock you on your ass,” Dean snaps, yanking the stuff back.

“Hey, woah, what’s up?” Sam asks walking slowly over to the table to place his presents next to Dean’s. He was starting to feel self-conscious about his present again but he leaves them on the table, kinda too late now.

Castiel and Dean glared at each other for a long moment, before Cas huffs and lets Dean take the bags and beer from him. “Just because today is… I don’t need to be waited upon, I can at least put the beer away.”

“No, sit down,” Dean growls.

“Uh,” Sam didn’t know what to say.

“All this was unnecessary,” Castiel says sitting down, resigned.

Sam smiles at him warily, “Morning, Cas. Happy birthday.”

Cas sighs and smiles back, “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam pours them all coffee as Dean locates breakfast onto the table. “This was unneeded,” Castiel says again, looking at the decorations, then the overflowing plates and the coffee Sam places at his elbow.

Dean snorts, “Too bad you don’t understand it.”

Cas shook his head, “I do. First birthdays are for small children. You’re comparing me to a baby again.”

“Wait until you see your cake I got it extra special,” Dean winks.

“I’m really sorry about this, Cas,” Sam grimaced, sitting next to him.

“Sam’s got some great ideas,” Dean nods to his brother.

“I told you _ not _ to do this.”

“That means I _ have _ to do it.”

“Don’t worry, Sam, I sort of expected this,” Cas explained.

“See, if I didn’t do this, Cas would’ve been disappointed.”

“That's… not exactly what I’m saying.” Cas scrunches up his brows in confusion.

“Well, I got this all planned out, you got your birthday breakfast,” Dean gestures to the food. “A new add-on to our birthdays since we got a kitchen now. You got games until noon—”

“Wait, what? Games?” Sam says. “What games?”

Dean shrugs, “Whatever I could think of.”

“Man, I’m starting to regret bringing this party thing up.”

Dean smirks, “Yeah, maybe next year we can pick a theme.”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, “Dean, you’re getting too into this.”

“Just wait till your birthday, Sammy, I can’t decide between princesses or clowns.”

“Oh, God, please don’t.”

“Anyway, at noon, you can open your presents and we can eat cake. Finish whatever games we couldn’t get to until dinner, which I’m thinking pizza? And whatever’s left of the cake and then we can drink all night and watch movies or Netflix or whatever. Sounds great right?”

Castiel blinks and realizes Dean’s waiting for an answer. “Yes?”

“Good. Now, birthday breakfast. I made pretty much everything. So you better eat.”

*** * ***

After breakfast Dean leads them to the gun range. He hands his followers ear muffs and gives Castiel his handgun. “Shoot the ass on the ass,” Dean grins. “Birthday boy gets to go first.”

Castiel looked down at his hands then up to see the mule at the end of the gun range.

“I was not expecting this,” Sam says, putting the muffs on his head. He’s actually feeling giddy now.

“What were you expecting?” Dean wonders.

“I am not going to tell you,” Sam shakes his head.

Dean grins. “Probably for the best, I’d have to change everything if your ideas are better.” He nudges the angel. “Go on, Cas, remember you got to shoot it in the ass. Preferably where the tail is supposed to be.”

“Is this… a children’s game?”

“Yeah, but better. I re-amped it for hunters and grown-ups alike.”

Without putting the earmuffs on, Castiel raised the gun, copying Sam and Dean’s shooting position he’s seen them in, his aim was slightly off as he shot the donkey in the leg instead of the ass.

“Me next,” Dean says, taking his gun back and lines up, shoots perfectly. Then Sam, who uses his own handgun that was tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He shoots almost next to Dean’s bullet hole. They all stand and squint at the donkey on the other end of the room. “I win,” Dean says, yanking the muffs off. “I’m obviously closer.” He takes a yellow piece of paper out of his left pocket and holds it out for the other two to see. “I get the first prize ticket.”

“Prize ticket?” Sam asks, narrowing his eyes at the paper. Castiel does the same. It looks like Dean drew a Demon’s trap in the middle of the blank yellow ticket, on the edges of the rectangle were random numbers.

“Yup. Just bought some random shit.” Dean shrugs.

“What is this a carnival?”

“Kinda feels like that doesn’t it?” Dean says. “Okay, next is, um… okay, to the library!” Dean leads them to the library and sits at the table. “Next is find the silver bullet in the ball pit.”

“Ball pit? What ball pit?” Sam says, looking around.

“What is a ball pit?” Castiel wonders.

“I put it in one of the rooms, you gotta go find the room then find the bullet, it’s gotta be silver though. I threw salt rounds and iron bullets in there too, but there's only one silver bullet.”

“We gotta find the room too? This is gonna take forever.” Sam turns around to head back into the maze of hallways.

Castiel turns to follow, then pauses, “What will you be doing, Dean?” Sam stops and turns around as well.

“What are you talking about, I know where the room is and basically where I threw the silver bullet, so it wouldn’t be fair to join. Anyways, I got to set up the next game so go on, shoo, vamoose.” Dean waves a hand and Sam and Castiel set out to find the room with the ball pit.

Sam just decided to open every door they pass. Castiel took the left while Sam did the right. “What is a ball pit, Sam?”

Sam huffed a laugh, “Basically it’s a, uh, a pool filled with colorful plastic balls. You’ll know when you see it.”

“Is it another children’s game.”

“Yeah, basically.” Sam snorted. “Dean’s being an idiot, although I’m surprised he went so far as to make games and prizes. It must have taken a lot of planning though. Let’s just play along for now.”

Castiel nods.

“Sorry, Cas, if this wasn’t what you expected for a birthday.”

“What are you talking about, Sam? Well, maybe I didn’t expect to search the bunker for a-a… ball pit and… and shooting mules in their rears, but I cannot think of any way or anybody I could spend today with.”

Sam smiled, touched, then snorted, “That’s ‘cause you don’t know anybody else. You’re stuck with us and… this,” Sam gestures the empty hallway.

“I don’t feel stuck at all. I like spending my time with you… both of you. Even if it becomes quite ridiculous at times.” Sam laughed, nudged his shoulder into Cas’.

*** * ***

They find the ball pit in Castiel’s room thirty minutes later. “When the hell did… how often do you go into your room, Cas?”

“Not often enough, apparently,” Castiel says. They move over to the large foam pit that appeared to be a foot deep and five feet by seven feet wide and filled less than halfway with colorful plastic balls just as Sam described. There is a piece of paper taped to the side.

“This is a rental, so don’t pop it or you both will be paying for it. And no taking the balls out, cheaters, you can take the bullets out though, somebody's going to have to collect them,” Cas reads.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Let’s just get this over with.”

He steps in carefully and moves to the far corner before crouching to shift through the balls. He throws salt rounds and iron bullets on Cas’ bed which was shoved away to make room for the pit.

Castiel is hesitant in stepping inside the pit but he slowly puts one foot over the foam wall then another, his movements are awkward and stiff, he doesn’t want to crush the plastic balls. He copies Sam and crouches to search.

Sam pauses and watches Cas for a long moment. The angel knows the Winchester is staring but only looks up when Sam doesn’t look away. He tilts his head in confusion, Sam grins and turns back to shifting through the balls. Castiel is still confused but continues his search. It’s quiet except for the clatter of the balls and the clank of bullets hitting each other as Sam throws them on Cas’ bed. Cas just collects them in his pocket.

“Sam,” Castiel says after a while.

The Winchester hums and looks up. The angel holds the silver bullet between his fingers. “I found it.”

Sam smiles and stands, Castiel gets to his feet too. “Great job, Cas!” He patted the angel on the back and gets out of the pit.

“Thank you,” Castiel says and clutches the bullet and follows Sam out of the pit. Cas takes a moment to take empty the iron and salt rounds from his pocket and onto his bed with the rest.

They head back to the library and find Dean in the same spot, feet propped up on the table, with a beer in hand.

“Cas found it, lazyass, what’s next?” Sam says. Castiel puts the bullet on the table and Dean grins. “Oh, so the birthday boy found it. Here’s your prize ticket.” Dean hands over a yellow ticket and Cas inspects it more closely. Sam looks over his shoulder, “Did you buy blank tickets just to draw on them?”

“Yeah, basically, I was going to draw something else but…” Dean shrugs.

“How much of these tickets did you buy?”

“ ‘Bout a thousand. They were in a roll, it was like four bucks.”

“What are we gonna do with the rest of them?”

Dean shrugs again and waves a hand dismissively. “Now, it’s ‘find the hex bag,’ obviously not a real hex bag, but it does have a prize ticket inside. I hid it in the library, just the library, so you don’t have to search the whole bunker for it.”

“You didn’t mess with my book order, did you,” Sam hisses.

“No, no, your precious books are still in your OCD order. And again, I know where it is, so I’m out of this game too.”

“Is there any game you’re gonna play?” Sam wonders distractedly, deciding where he’d look first.

“Yeah, but not the next one either. I already got it planned out. So go on, find the hex bag… or one or both of you will die,” Dean jokes.

“That’s not funny,” Sam says, but he moves to the bookshelf and slides a hand across the spines to see if one of them was moved forward to hide a bag in the back of it, Castiel watches for a moment before doing the same to another bookshelf.

It’s been well over an hour and neither one of them has found the hex bag yet. Dean grins and mocks them the entire time. “No wonder it took you so long to find the silver bullet, you two suck.”

Sam shot his brother a glare. “Are you just jonesing us? Is it really in the library?”

“Yeah, really. I hid it in the library.”

Castiel looks slowly around, he doesn’t understand where it could possibly be. They both checked the bookcases thoroughly, under furniture, between furniture. They moved everything. His eyes land on Dean. Dean hasn’t moved once. Feet propped onto the table as he sipped his beer so very slowly. Measly little sips like he knew he was going to be sitting there for a long time.

Castiel walked over to the older Winchester, eyes narrowed into slits. He notices the older Winchester’s heart rate picked up as Cas stood in front of him. He continues to grin. “What’s up? You forfeit, Cas?”

He grabbed ahold of Dean’s pant leg and pushed his feet off the table. The hex bag falls onto the floor.

“You ass,” Sam groans. “Seriously, you had it— what the hell, why didn’t I even think of that. It’s like the Impala keys all over again. I am so gonna get you for this later.”

Dean laughs as Castiel bends down to grab the hex bag and sets it on the table. Dean unties it and reveals the yellow paper, he hands it to Cas. “Jeez, Sammy, you haven’t gotten any prize tickets at all.”

Sam shrugs, “It doesn't matter.”

“I bought a prize specifically for you too, y’ know.”

Sam shrugs again. “What’s next.” Dean rolls his eyes, “Sit down, this one you two don’t have to run around.” Dean shuffles a pile of normal looking playing cards.

“It’s a hunter’s test,” He explains. I read a monster name and you two have to race to say how to kill it or it’s weakness. The fastest person gets the monster card and whoever gets the most monster cards wins. Easy.”

“Okay,” Sam says.

Castiel nods and glances at Sam for a second.

“Vampire,” Dean reads.

“Decapitation,” Sam says blandly. Dean slides the card over and Sam looks at it. Dean simply scrawled the name on the card’s face in thick black permanent marker. Cas leans over and looks at it too.

“It looks like you spent like thirty seconds on this.”

“Shut up, it was like three in the morning when I put it together. Wraith.”

“Silver.”

“Wendigo.”

“Fire.”

“What’s wrong, Cas? You haven’t gotten a single one yet and Sam’s answering at his normal pace. Not even trying, either of you.”

Castiel looks over at the younger hunter and Sam locks eyes with him for a moment before turning away to look at Dean’s crudely written ‘Wendigo.’ “He’s letting me win,” Sam says.

“I… yes, you haven’t gotten a prize ticket yet, Sam.” Cas looks down the table and stares at the S.W. and D.W. carved into the polished wood. He didn’t see a need to lie to Sam but he doesn’t think the hunter would appreciate it. Both brothers were very competitive and disliked when the other went easy or let them win.

Sam snorts, “Don’t worry about me, Cas. Look, I’m three cards ahead of you now, so why don’t you name them off too.”

Castiel squirms, “Alright.”

“Jeez, if your gonna throw the game we might as well stop, it’s almost noon anyways.”

“Noon? It’s like ten.”

“Close enough and we had a big breakfast so it's not like we're gonna have lunch, just cake,” Dean shrugs.

“No, I’ll play it properly, please continue,” Cas says.

Dean waits a moment before looking down at the next card. “Djinn.”

“Angels.”

“Silver dipped i-in—” Sam stutters to a stop and looks at Cas, “What?”

“Angels can kill Djinns, easily,” Cas explains.

Dean shrugs, “Sure, alright. Here ya go, Cas.”

“Werewolf.”

“Angels.” “Silver.”

Dean looks confused, “T-that was, uh, I have no idea who was fastest.”

“I believe Sam was,” Castiel says.

“I really doubt that. I bet you know how many seconds and a half exactly you said yours before me.”

“No,” Cas says.

“You’re shit at lying,” Dean says, but slides the card to Sam anyways.

“Arachne.”

“Decapitation.”

“… Angels.” It was so obvious that Cas waited until Sam was halfway through his own answer to say his own.

Sam huffs a laugh, “Are you gonna say ‘angels’ for every answer now?”

“Yes? Angel’s can kill all of these monsters.”

“Leviathan?”

“No angels cannot—”

“No, I’m reading the card.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, he looks at Sam expectantly. Sam rolls his eyes, “Borax.”

“Shapeshifter.”

“Silver.” “Angels.” Dean automatically gives the card to Sam.

“Jefferson Starships.”

“Angels.”

Sam looks at the angel mischievously, then says, “You put those guys in there too?” Like he hadn’t planned to mess with Cas.

“Yeah, of course.” Dean slides the card to Cas.

“They're like extinct or whatever,” Sam smirks at Cas when he pouts at his card.

Dean shrugs and turns the next card around for Sam and Cas to see. “So are Phoenixes.”

Sam and Cas look at each other. Sam huff a laugh, “The colt.”

Dean snorts at the next card. “Fish-taco.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Silver.”

“Banshee.”

“Gold,” Sam and Cas say at the same time. Dean slides the card to Cas this time and he frowns at Dean who shrugs, Cas didn’t attempt to answer the last two cards.

Dean opened his mouth, then closed it, he put the card in the back of the pile and Sam snorted. “Double?” Sam asked.

“Shut up. Dragons.”

“Sword forged with dragon’s blood.” Dean gives Sam the card and a yellow ticket then puts the rest of the cards on the table. “I’m ready for cake. You two head to the kitchen, I’m gonna go grab the cake from my room.”

They split up and Sam and Cas made their way to the kitchen. 

“You didn’t have to do that, Cas,” Sam says.

“If I didn’t you certainly would not have won,” the angel says flatly.

“Yeah, I know,” Sam laughs. “I wonder what the cake is gonna look like. I can only assume it’s got babies on it going with this first birthday theme.” Sam chuckles trying to imagine it.

“Thank you, Sam, for putting this together.”

“What? I didn’t.”

“You were intent on celebrating my birthday, even when I don’t have one.”

Sam tucks his hair behind his ear. “Well, I’m sure you _ do _ have one. God did create you, we just don’t know when that was. But anyway, I feel like I should be saying sorry because Dean’s been… well being Dean and… We just choose a birthday for you and decided to celebrate it without really asking you.”

They sat down at the table, side by side. “No, but I did enjoy this so far,” Cas says. “We have hung out and are having fun, well I am at least,” Castiel looks shyly at Sam.

“Yeah, I’ve been having fun too, Cas. I always have fun hanging out with you. And Dean. Just, um, we both planned this, kind of, and you didn’t really have a say in it. You’re just going with the flow.”

“I will always follow you and Dean. As for today… it has been a good resting day for all of us. A type of vacation to have fun, instead of the hunt and worry about… well.” Cas shook his head. “I have a working theory that you both have been trying to incorporate the many birthdays you’ve missed throughout your childhood into this one.”

Sam smiles, he wouldn’t put it past Dean, “Maybe.”

“That’s too deep and psychological for the birthday boy,” Dean says walking in carrying a large cake.

“Jeez, Dean, we’re never gonna finish that.”

Dean sets it gently on the table in front of Cas and he sees the _ ‘Happy 1st Birthday, Castiel!’ _ in cursive blue frosting. The cake was blue and white. There is only one candle embedded in the cake. Castiel vaguely thinks there wouldn’t be a cake large enough to hold the number of candles to express how old he really was. He then notices the details on the baby, Sam correctly guessed Dean was going to incorporate. Castiel moved closer and narrowed his eyes at it and he can hear Dean’s voice in his head. _ “Well, that's great, because without your power, you're basically just a baby in a trenchcoat.” _

“How much did you pay for this thing?” he hears Sam say, then their shoulders bump as Sam leans in to look at the cake more closely. Cas suspects he noticed the baby too. “Is that… is that a trench coat on the baby?”

Dean laughs. “It’s amazing, isn’t? The bakers were all confused and shit when I requested it. I told them it was a gag, which it kind of is.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel says sincerely.

“Yeah, yeah. But we’re not there yet, it’s presents first then cake eating.” Dean pulls the cake away and sits on the opposite side of him and Sam. “So hurry up and open your dozens of presents Sam got you and we can eat this sweetheart up.”

“I told you, Dean, it’s not a dozen. I only got four,” Sam eyes his gifts anxiously. Technically he bought six gifts but he wrapped the similar ones together.

Cas looks at the five wrapped presents at the end of the table. He assumes the four similar-looking, nicer wrapped ones in blue wrapping paper are Sam’s and the newspaper with several wrappings of tape was Dean’s.

Dean pushes the gifts down the table in reach. He grabs his own gift and places it in front of the birthday boy.

Cas struggles with it for several long minutes. “Jeez, Dean, did you use a whole roll of tape?” Sam chides. Dean laughs.

Castiel and Sam correctly assumed it’s alcohol. A bottle of tequila. Cas smiles, “Thank you, Dean.” The older Winchester shrugs, “You really are the hardest person to find a gift for.”

Sam fidgets when Dean hands Cas one of Sam’s bigger gifts. Castiel doesn’t know how to unwrap Sam’s nice ones, Dean’s _ had _ to be torn open because of the massive amount of tape, but Sam’s are nice and neat.

Dean rolls his eyes, “Just tear it open, Cas.”

Sam huffs a nervous laugh, “Yeah, it doesn’t matter, it’s going into the trash anyway.” Castiel nodded and did so but he still felt a little bad over it. It looked like Sam took a long time wrapping it.

It was two shirts. Castiel picked up the top one, from what he could tell it was a blank black t-shirt. Dean rolled his eyes and huffs, “Seriously, Sam?” Sam swallows and ducks his head slightly. Castiel turned the shirt over and saw what Dean saw. On the back was cerulean blue wings. Castiel believes Sam was trying for angel wings.

Sam laughed again, but it sounded nervous and ashamed. “I, uh, sorry, it was stupid of me to get them, I just, um, I thought, uh…”

Castiel tried to catch the younger hunter’s eyes but Sam looked everywhere else but at Castiel. “No, I like it, Sam. Thank you.” Castiel looked back down at the black shirt with blue wings and using his grace he replaced his button-up and coats with it. His clothing neatly folded on the table beside white shirt still in the box.

Sam’s head snaps up and Cas smiles at him. “It’s very comfortable. Thank you, Sam.” It was still very odd to see Cas out of his trench coat. He’s showing so much skin now.

Sam slightly blushes and nods. “The white one has black wings. I-I couldn’t decide which one would fit you better.”

Castiel paused and wondered what Sam meant ‘fit him better’. If they were the same size, they would both fit him, but he realizes Sam was talking about the colors. Like green and red and black fit Dean, while blue and green and brown fit Sam.

“Okay, okay, next!” Dean urged, grabbing the smallest and handing it to Cas. Sam squirms over this gift too.

It’s a necklace, Cas take is out. “They’re dog tags,” Sam explains. “Not actual dog tags but, uh, they’re mostly for people in the military and stuff, and… well, you're a _ warrior _ of God, so, um, yeah. It’s made of pure silver, so it might be helpful for hunts with monsters who burn being touched by silver, but you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want.”

Castiel couldn’t help but stare at the words embedded into the metal.

**Castiel Winchester**

**Angel of the Lord**

**Hunter**

**October 30**

On the back, there was an anti-possession sigil imprinted on it.

“I-I…” _ Castiel Winchester. Castiel Winchester. Castiel Winchester. _

“If there’s something you don’t want or wanna change I can order a new one.”

“No, no, I love it, Sam.” _ Castiel Winchester. _ Cas clutches it in his hands. He looks at Sam and smiles. “I love it.”

“What does it say?” Dean wonders, seeing the emotion swamping Castiel’s usually passive face, bending over the table to look. Castiel shows him and from the corner of his eye, he saw Sam blush darker and smile from under his hair.

“That’s really cool, Cas, but you don’t need a necklace to tell you you're a Winchester.” Dean grins, he’s slightly jealous though. “Maybe tomorrow we can go make you an I.D. and put your name on it.”

“Yes, I would like that.”

“U-um, Dean?” Sam bites his lip.

“Yeah?”

“I… I kind of… got you one too,” Sam digs into his pants pocket and takes an identical necklace out. Dean tight jawed reaches out and takes it.

**Dean Winchester**

**Big Brother**

**Hunter**

**January 24**

“S-sorry, Cas, it’s your birthday but I got Dean a gift too—”

“It’s alright, Sam, I don’t mind.” Castiel smiles, he can tell how happy it made Dean. “Your birthday is in a couple of months and I thought about waiting till then but, uh, I didn’t-didn’t really want to, y’ know?” Sam babbled. The older brother quickly threw it over his head and hid it under his shirt. “I’m glad you didn’t,” Dean says. “Thanks, Sammy.” Sam nods and smiles and Castiel smiles too and puts on his necklace too but he left his ‘dog tag’ exposed on top of his shirt. He didn’t want to hide it, he wanted everyone to see it. Cas tells himself that he needs to speak to Dean later about buying Sam a matching one, he doubts Sam bought one for himself.

“Okay, two more,” Dean says, more chipper, passing Castiel another rectangular box. It was smaller than the shirt box.

They were ties. One was solid blue, a lighter color than the one Cas usually wore and the other was a dull yellow gold with a honeycomb pattern and small bees on it. Dean laughed at it, but Castiel loved it. Next time he wears his usual clothes he’s going to wear this tie, no matter how much Dean laughs at him or teases him.

Cas already knows what the next and last gift was. He could smell the earthy-floral fresh scent, just like he could smell the sweet cream and sugary frosting of the slightly melted cake or the bitter alcohol from Dean’s newspaper-wrapped gift. He opened it carefully and found it was a small potted cactus. A round green plant with white spines and a bright yellow flower on the top. Castiel knew it as a Parodia Rubellihamata Cactus. He doesn’t think either hunter knows.

“Huh,” Dean says, “I guess we were kinda thinking the same thing. I got a cactus too, for the prizes though, not really as a gift.” The hunter grins, “Mine’s real funny looking.”

“You both realize that cacti need the sun to grow,” Cas says amused, nevertheless enjoying the gift. The brothers look at each other, Sam looks a little bashful. “Uh,” he starts. Dean just shrugs, “I actually didn’t think of that at all. Well anyways, finally cake!” Dean gives Sam his zippo before pushing Castiel’s gifts back down the table, then got up to grab plates, silverware, and a spatula. Sam slid the cake directly in front of Cas and carefully took off the plastic cover and lit the candle.

Dean settled down, then frowns, “We don’t have to sing, right.”

Sam laughs, “No, I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. Okay, Cas blow it.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at the hunter. Sam snorted, “You gotta blow the candle out and make a wish, Cas.”

“Make a wish? Why?”

“It’s, uh, it’s just a birthday tradition humans do. It’s kinda like wishing on a shooting star or a wishing well or the first star,” Sam explains.

Castiel tilts his head but he leans forward and blows out the candle. He wishes he could get the answer to the question that’s been bugging him for a month and a half.

Nothing happens and he’s not surprised. Dean cuts the cake and gives Castiel the first piece. He knows Dean made sure the baby in the trench coat was on top of his on purpose. He eats around it.

“It’s made out of fondant icing so you can eat it,” Dean says with a mouthful of cake, pointing his fork at the baby. Castiel stares at it for a moment. “I’d rather not.” Dean shrugs and grabs another large slice of cake.

*** * ***

“Man, I’m so full,” Dean groans.

“I can’t believe you almost ate all that cake. That was like fifteen, twenty servings. How are your teeth not rotting? Mine are aching just thinking about all that sugar.”

“What can I say, I got a sweet tooth and my body takes it like a champ, Mr. Sensitive-stomach. The next two games are gonna have us running around the bunker, so I’ll work it off and I can finish the cake off later tonight with the pizza.”

“The next game I dub ‘Soul Stealer’ or maybe it should be ‘Demon Deal’ or… whatever.” Dean blows up two balloons. Ties a small piece of string to the end of both of them. He hands one to Sam and one to Cas.

“These are your souls, not literally,” Dean rolls his eyes as Castiel narrows his own at the yellow balloon in his hands. “The demon, me, is gonna chase you through the bunker, anywhere in the bunker, you can’t leave though. And if I catch you and take your soul you become soulless and have to help me collect the last person’s soul. Got it?”

“I don’t… really like this one,” Sam muttered under his breath, looking at his blue balloon cupped in his hands.

“What?” Dean asked. Sam shakes his head, “Nothing. Got it, demon.”

“Bitch,” Dean grins, “I’ll give ya like two minutes head start. Go.”

Sam grabs Cas’ hand and runs down the hallway. Castiel wonders why Sam already dislikes the game. Maybe it’s because it brings up bad memories. Being soulless or… or being chased by Dean when he turned into a real demon. Cas squeezes Sam’s hand tighter. He thinks he doesn’t like this game either.

He can hear Dean’s shoes slap against the concrete floor several hallways behind them and vaguely thinks it hasn’t been two minutes yet.

“Sammy! Cas!” Dean calls out.

Sam squeezes Cas’ hand and his heart stutters. Castiel stops running at the fork at the end of the hallway which pulls Sam to a stop too. “W-what are you doing, Cas, Dean’s gonna-gonna—”

“Go on without me, Sam. Protect your soul, I will deal with Dean.”

Sam looks concerned, “How? He’s might take yours.”

Cas shakes his head, “Don’t worry about me, just go and hide, I will distract him.”

Dean calls out to them again and Sam still looks hesitate to leave. “Go, Sam,” Cas urges, nudging him to the left.

“Be careful,” Sam says and sprints down the hallway. Castiel turned towards the passage Dean is going to come from. Not even a minute later Dean comes around the corner. He looked surprised to see Castiel but grins wickedly. “What’cha doing, Cas?”

The angel turns and runs down the right hallway. Dean follows and Cas smiles, successfully leading Dean away from Sam.

“I’m gonna get your soul, Cas,” Dean taunts, but after several minutes of ongoing running the hunter is breathless. Panting and his stride is slower than a few minutes ago. “Shit, that’s no fair, you got angel stamina.”

Castiel turns his head and grins at the hunter over his shoulder. “For a demon, you have no stamina at all.”

Dean has to stop and gulp down air for several minutes. Cas is long gone and he’s really regretting this game. He hasn’t a clue where Sam is.

He trudges back toward the kitchen, he needs a damn drink if he’s gonna do any more running. If he’s lucky he’ll find Sam, he doesn’t want to run after Cas again. Maybe Cas can be the demon next round. After a twenty-minute break, that is.

Sam decided to hide in the storage room connected with the dungeon. He keeps the light off so he doesn’t grab Dean’s attention. His breathing has slowed to a calm rhythm by now, well, that is until he heard somebody's footsteps echoing down the hallway, getting closer and closer. He stops breathing as his heart thunders. Panicked, he wonders if it’s Dean.

He clutches his balloon soul close as the steps slow to a stop in front of the door. _ Oh God, oh God, oh God. _

The door opens then closes. Whoever came in doesn’t turn on the light as they step further inside.

“Sam?”

Sam breaths, peeks his head out from behind the shelves he sitting in front of. “Cas.” Sam sees the small yellow balloon still clutched in the angel's hand. “You still have your soul,” he beamed.

Castiel smiles, “Of course.” He walks over to and around Sam and sits next to him, shoulders bumping, even though there was plenty of space to move. Sam didn’t say anything so Cas does move away.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“I heard your heartbeat.”

Sam’s heart stutters and he tucks some hair behind his ear, “O-oh. Uh, how’d you— how’d you get away?”

“Sam, I’m an angel, I can run for however long I want without sweating nor breathing.” The angel leaned forward and brushed Sam’s cooling slick hair back from his eyes.

Sam snorts and his shoulders shake as he tries to keep quiet. “Oh man, Dean’s probably regretting this. You’re amazing, Cas.” Castiel grins at him.

They sit there, shoulder to hip, for twenty minutes. They haven’t heard from Dean. “I wonder if Dean’s gonna quit,” Sam says twirling the string on his balloon absently.

Cas hums, “He’s a few hallways away. I hear doors, I think he’s been searching rooms now.”

“You think we’re safe here?”

“I don’t know… Maybe not.”

“We should hide somewhere else then.”

“If we do, we should go now, before he gets closer.” Sam nods and gets up, brushes his pants off and moves to the door. He opens it quietly and looks both ways. “Which way?” He whispers.

“We should go left,” Cas mumbles. Sam darts left and Cas easily matches his stride. Sam falls into another fit of giggles. “He’s going to hear you, if you keep laughing, Sam,” the angel chuckles.

“I know, I know. I just can’t-can’t stop. I’m feeling giddy.”

Castiel’s feeling a bit exhilarated too. He hasn’t seen Sam so happy in a long while and it’s so contagious. His dimples, his flushed face, and breathless laughter. That sparkle in his eyes, the sweat collecting on his forehead, and his heartbeat thundering. None of it is out of fear or embarrassment, which makes it all the more wonderful.

He knows Sam can run a bit longer than Dean since Sam goes out almost every morning for a jog. He wonders if he can join him some time so that he can see this part of Sam again.

Then suddenly they stuttered to a stop, Castiel was so wrapped up in Sam that he didn’t notice Dean circled around and got ahead of them. He must have heard Sam laughing or their shoes echoing through the halls or their voices echoing down the hall.

“Got you,” Dean says grinning, his eyes flicked to Sam’s soul dangling on the string Sam clutched tightly in his hand. Castiel knows Dean’s gonna go after Sam because Cas is too fast, too strong. So as Dean lunges at his brother Castiel tackles Dean. They both hit the floor and Sam jumps back.

“Jesus!” Dean shouts.

“Run, Sam!” Cas calls over his shoulder, then turns back to the older Winchester. “You’re not taking his soul, I won’t let you!”

“Fuck, Cas, it’s only a game!” Dean grunts trying to push the angel off. Sam stumbles into the wall and laughs, he holds his stomach and can’t help the tears that cloud his vision. “Oh, man… Can we just… just stop. I can’t… I can’t breathe. Oh God, this… this was amazing… Please… can we just… stop… stop.” Sam’s wheezing and panting trying to talk and breathe and laugh all at the same time.

Both Castiel and Dean stop wrestling and watch Sam break down. Castiel grins and laughs, then Dean joins in. “Man, this is the most fun I’ve had in so long,” Dean grunts, flopping down onto his back on the cold, hard floor.

“I very much enjoyed this,” Castiel agreed, sitting beside Dean’s sprawled out body. Sam ended up on the floor too, sliding down the wall and onto his ass, still breathlessly laughing. “I thought this game would’ve sucked, but it turned out to be really fun. He drags his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.

“What? Why would it suck?” Dean panted.

“Seriously?” Sam huffed, his lips still turned upwards.

“You being a demon chasing us through the bunker. Then when caught we turn soulless,” Castiel explains and Dean sits up, frowning. “Oh. Oh, man, Sam, God, what the hell, I didn’t— that wasn’t— sorry, Sammy.”

Sam smiled at his brother, shook his head, “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just a game.”

“I wasn’t even thinking that. I just started out as the demon because, well, Cas is the birthday boy and you— well I didn’t think you being called a, uh… I know your real sensitive on it.”

Sam squirms, his smile is gone, his jaw clenched tightly. He tries anyway to tilt his lips back up. It looks more like a grimace. “Yeah, uh, thanks, it’s really okay, Dean. I had a lot of fun anyway. We should do this kind of stuff more often.” He smiles warily now. Huffs another laugh, “Man, I need some water and a shower,” his head leans back as he takes a deep slow breath.

“Yeah, I need a break.”

“Who’s going to be the ‘demon’ next?” Cas wonders.

“If we’re all up for a second round I was thinking you, Cas,” Dean says, “… but in a couple of minutes.” Dean huffs, dropping back down onto the floor.

Castiel smiles at the two brothers, as they slowly regained their needed breathes. He sits quietly listening to the hum of the bunker and their slowing heartbeats. It was quite relaxing after all of the excitement. He hoped they could do this again. Maybe not this particular game but one like it. Maybe something with angels, he thinks Sam would like that, Dean would roll his eyes, say it was stupid and angels were just as much of dicks as demons but he’d go along with it anyway, especially if Sam does that thing with his eyes that seem to make Dean cave every time.

They did another two rounds with Castiel as the ‘demon’ and Sam as the ‘demon.’ Castiel had a hard time ‘stealing’ the Winchesters balloon souls because it didn’t sit right with him to take their souls and let them become soulless even if its just a game, but he ended up catching both boys unsurprisingly but he stretched it out as long as he could, until both boys collapsed in exhaustion. It was pretty easy to grab their souls then.

During Sam’s turn, he was taunted by both his brother and the angel. Castiel never let him get close enough to get his soul but was never more than a foot away. Sam managed to catch Dean and they wrestled breathlessly until Dean’s soul popped.

Sam sat up surprised, straddling his brother’s heaving stomach. “Well, shit… now I’m soulless forever.” Sam resorted to a fit of laughter and he ended up lying beside Dean and infecting him with it. They laughed side by side on the floor of the Map room.

Castiel joined them, standing over them, grinning, “Do you two need _ another _ fifty-minute break.”

“Cas, man, I hate you,” Dean huffs smiling back. “I wish I didn’t need to breathe.”

Sam sighed contently closed his eyes and when he opened them back up, he spotted Cas’ balloon dangling close to him. He picked up a weak arm and reached out to Castiel’s hand and grabbed his fingers. Cas looks at him surprised and Sam grinned drowsily up at him. “I gotcha, Cas. Your soul’s mine now.”

“Yes, yes it is, Sam.” Castiel’s face softened as he entwined their fingers and lowers himself onto his knees above where the two brother’s sprawled out on the floor again. It seems to be where they ended up after each round until they got enough strength to get up and drag themselves to the kitchen to guzzle more water and rest.

Sam laughs breathlessly again but doesn’t let go, so neither does Cas. Dean doesn’t appear to see it and if he does he doesn’t comment.

They all decided no one really won the game. Dean hadn’t caught a single soul during his round, Cas and technically Sam too got both souls, so it was more like a tie.

“Need a shower,” Sam mumbled against the kitchen table.

“Maybe after the next game. It sort of has us running around too.”

Sam groans. “Yeah, maybe in like twenty minutes.”

*** * ***

“Okay, the last game is a hunt. I got a list of stuff written here,” Dean shoves his hand into his pocket and hands out a notepad paper to Sam and Cas, and keeps one for himself. “It’s like a treasure hunt. Collect all the objects that are needed on a hunter’s hunt and when you have it all, uh, I guess we can meet up in the library.”

“Um, wait, why am _ I _ an object on the list?” Sam says, raising a brow. “I don’t think I’m _ necessary _ on a hunt.”

“It makes it interesting,” Dean shrugs, it looks like he wants to say something else. “But look you already have one crossed off, so you’re one ahead of me and Cas.”

“So-ooo, basically, I have to collect this stuff while you guys do too while trying not to be caught by you?”

“Hmm, yeah.” Dean patted his shoulder, “Good luck, Sammy.”

Sam huffed and bolted down the hallway and Dean grinned then headed the opposite way, mumbling ‘how the hell do I not have a picture of my baby yet?’ Cas looks down at the list:

Impala (picture).

Gun.

Salt.

Knife.

Book.

Sammy.

Match or lighter.

Classic rock cassette tape.

Silver.

Castiel looks the way Dean went then the way Sam went. He turns and follows Sam. Castiel knows Sam has his gun on him, there are plenty of books in Sam’s room which he assumes is where the younger hunter is heading. There is also salt and a silver knife in Sam’s go bag in his room too. He thinks Sam still has Dean’s zippo from when he lit the birthday cake candle too. That’s seven out of nine.

Cas peeks into the hunter’s room and see’s Sam kneeling on the floor taking a silver knife and a salt round from his hunting bag and put them next to a book. Castiel can hear him mumbling something about being an object for a hunt. ‘Stupid Dean. How am I needed for a hunt?’

Castiel walks through the threshold, quietly, using his grace to become invisible and stands over Sam. The boy shivers and looks behind him for a moment then gathers the items and makes his way to his door, he peeks out, listens and rushes down the hallway to head to the garage. Looking behind him every so often, paranoid.

The garage is quiet and Dean’s nowhere in sight. Sam’s suspicious that he hasn’t seen his brother or the angel. _ I guess out of all the ‘objects’ I would be the hardest to ‘collect,’ _ he thinks.

Sam moves slowly to the Impala, eyes flickering around, just in case his brother decides to jump out from behind somewhere. He fishes out his phone and snaps a picture of Dean’s car then pockets his phone to open the passenger side door.

“Damn it, Dean, you cheater,” he growls. The box of cassette tapes is gone from the glove box. He checks the glove box thoroughly and nope, none fell out of the box. Sam looks at the cassette player and gets an idea. He presses eject and the Motorhead tape comes out, Sam smirks. “Jerk.” He pockets the tape and gets out of the car. He shuts the door as quietly as he can, which isn’t quiet at all, and heads back out of the garage. Castiel is just a step behind him.

He jerks to a stop in the library doorway and Cas almost runs into him. “Dean!”

Dean grins, “Hey, Sa—” Castiel appears and puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam yelps and Dean frowns.

“I win,” Cas says flatly.

“W-w-what?” Sam stutters. “H-how long…?”

“Since your bedroom. I’ve been with you the entire time. Of course, you could not see me as I did not want you to.”

“B-but cassette tapes,” Dean gestures the box that was in his glove box.

Cas smiles, “Sam found one.”

Sam sighed in surrender and pulls the tape out to show Dean. “You left one in the cassette player in the Impala.”

“… Son of a bitch.” Dean flung his arms out and Sam smirked.

He walked over to the library table and laid out his treasure. Cassette tape, book, silver knife, salt round, he pulled his gun out from his waistband and Dean’s zippo he had in his pocket and his phone with his picture of the Impala. “And me,” Sam says.

“I believed it would have been easier to wait for Sam to gather the items first and follow him to the library then appearing opposed to carrying him around while I collected and he tried to escape.”

Sam kind of got distracted for a moment picturing Cas carrying him over his shoulder while he struggled to get away. He tucked some hair behind his ear while his face heated up.

“Okay, okay, you win,” Dean hands the angel another ticket. “Now for the prizes, then pizza and movie night.”

“No,” Sam pouts, “prizes, _ shower _, pizza and movie night.”

Dean snorts and leaves to go grab the prizes from his room while Sam and Cas wait in the library. “I’m sorry, I hid myself from you, Sam,” Castiel says.

Sam laughs, “It’s okay, Cas. You know I felt like someone was nearby watching me, guess I was right.” He bumped his shoulder with Cas’. The angel smiled up at him, then it slowly faded. “Why today?”

“Huh? You’re gonna have to be more specific, Cas. Why today what?” Sam tucks the other side of his hair behind his ear, Cas follows the motion.

“It’s been a persistent question on my mind. Why did you choose today as my birthday? It could have been any day. Dean also mentioned that you could have made it on Halloween tomorrow. Why didn’t you? Why did you choose today instead?”

Sam huffed a laugh, blushing, he ducked his head. “It’s stupid, really.” He shifts on his feet. “Today is, uh, like the, um… the anniversary of when we first met.” Sam laughed nervously, “I told you, it’s stupid. Dean’ll say I’m such a girl for even remembering it, God, I feel like such a girl,” Sam mumbled rubbing a hand on the back of his neck.

“I don’t really understand how being female helps to remember important dates.”

“It’s not really important, Cas. I’m just being stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, Sam. I think it is important. I apologize for not thinking you remembered it too. I should have known better.”

Sam paused. “You… remembered it too?”

“Yes. I just did not think you remembered it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Cas looked down at his feet. “It wasn’t the most… friendly of greetings.”

Sam laughed, this time a bit more genuine. “You can say that again, but I get it, half-demon boy and angel doesn’t really sound like any good—”

“Sam Winchester! You are _ not _ any part demon. Don’t ever think of yourself like that,” Castiel snarled.

“I, er, uh, that… sorry.”

“I know now that what I said when we first met was very rude, I wish I could go back and fix the way we met. I’ve thought about it for so long, I know what I should have said instead.” Cas steps closer and takes Sam’s hand and cradles it like he did that day. He looked up into Sam’s surprised hazel eyes. “Sam Winchester, the boy with the faithful bright soul.”

Sam blushed then snickered, “That doesn’t sound as good as demon blood.”

“I could replace it with many alternatives: smart, considerate, kind-hearted, beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Sam blushed darker.

“Would you like me to say handsome, or maybe stunning?”

Sam snorted, flushed deep red, “No, no, just… didn’t think you, um…” He swallowed and shifted on his feet again.

“You’re quite a sight, Sam.” Castiel smiled. “You fight monsters and was tortured by Lucifer himself and you’re flustered by a few compliments.”

Sam chuckled, “Yeah, I know. Not really, um, used to it yet, I guess.”

“Then I will continue to compliment you until you do get used to it.”

“Really, Cas, that’s not necessary.”

“I believe it is. You are amazing, Sam Winchester. Important—”

“Finally,” Dean groans, walking around the corner. “You two are the slowest and most oblivious girls ever.”

“Dean,” Sam flushes, “H-how long have you— were you just standing there eavesdropping?”

“I couldn’t just walk in mid- ‘Why did you choose today?’”

“That’s like— the whole conversation,” Sam glares.

Dean shrugs, “If I interrupted you two wouldn’tve talked and confessed to each other.”

“We—what—we didn’t!” Sam shouted, blushing all the way to his ears.

“Sure, sounded like it,” Dean taunted.

“Confess what?” Castiel wondered.

“Nothing,” Sam says. “Prizes, just do the prizes, Dean.”

“Okay, okay, jeez, cool it, Sam.” Dean looked disappointed and annoyed. He put the box of prizes onto the table. “I totally call dibs on the pizza blanket,” Dean says and pulls the packaged blanket out. Sam rolls his eyes, “Which one was ‘specifically bought for me’?”

“The scented candles, Samantha,” Dean sneers. “They’re, uh, pumpkin apple and like… fresh fallen leaves or some shit. They smelled the best outta the bazillion different Halloween ones.”

“Why Halloween ones?” Sam observes the candles.

“I know you’re gonna light ‘em and I’m gonna smell 'em, might as well be in the holiday mood. Remind me we gotta buy bags of candy after Halloween when they go on clearance.”

“I guess the rest is for you, Cas,” Sam says. Castiel takes the potted cactus gently out of the box and sets it on the table. Dean snorts and laughs. Sam rolls his eyes but he can’t help chuckling too. It looks like a dick. “Be mature, Dean, seriously,” Sam laughs. Castiel tries to ignore the two brothers as he takes out a zippo, matching Dean’s, then the two giant-sized candy bars. “Maybe we could share these,” Cas says.

“Sounds great to me,” Dean says. “We can eat ‘em while we watch a movie. I gotta put the pizza in the oven though, Sam shower and Cas why don’t you go find something to watch.”

“Come on Cas,” Sam nudges him, collects the stuff scattered across the table and starts toward his room.

“Go ahead and get comfortable, turn on Netflix. I’m gonna put this stuff away and I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

Sam puts the book on his desk, the salt round and silver knife back in his go bag and goes over to his bureau. 

Cas nods and picks up the T.V. remote. Turning on Netflix was like instinct now, like flying or fighting with his blade.

His vessel automatically moves to strip off coats but he’s still wearing his black shirt with bright blue angel wings on the back, so he sits down on Sam’s bed to discard his shoes. When he looks up, Sam is watching him. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to presume that I could—”

“No, no, Cas, I said get comfy. I really don’t mind. Seriously. I, um… I was just thinking, uh, we should really get you like sleep pants, or uh, pajama pants or sweatpants or something. Of course, it’s not like you need them or anything, just something to change into once in a while. Really get comfy— not that your normal clothes aren’t comfy for you or, um… n-nevermind. I’m just gonna shut up and go now,” Sam babbled, backing out of his room and bolted down the hallway.

Castiel tilts his head, then looks at his pants. He understands what Sam was trying to say but he doesn’t think it's very necessary to buy him clothes. It’s a nice thought and it is kind of Sam to offer, but he still believes it’s a waste.

When Sam comes back he’s freshly clean with a box he recognizes as his gifts. Sam smiles shyly and puts the small box next to the angel on the bed. “I wasn’t sure what or where you wanted to put your stuff but for now I have them all in this box; your birthday gifts and the prizes you won.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel smiles down at his new items.

“Maybe when we go out we can buy a lamp or something that acts like a fake sun, y’ know for the plants.” Sam chuckles, “We gotta put your room back together too. Well, Dean is, he’s the one who messed it up.” Sam rolls his eyes.

Castiel hummed, he thinks he’s going to put the plants on the bare shelf. Like Sam, his room is empty of personal items. “Not moved in,” Dean described it. For now, though, he’ll make sure the cacti don’t wilt even if he has to use his grace.

Sam patted the angel’s knee, “I’ll be right back, Dean needs help carrying the food over.” Cas starts to get up but Sam urged him back down. “Dean also said not to let you help, birthday boy.”

“I am capable of carrying a couple of things, I want to help.”

“Yeah I know you do, just, not today. Let us take care of it. Then we’ll let you run around tomorrow and do whatever you want.”

Castiel pouts, puts his box of stuff on the floor beside him and picks up the remote. Sam pats him on the knee again and gets up and leaves again.

“Did you find anything good?” Dean asks when they walked in with the pizza pan balanced in one hand and two six-packs in his other. Sam was behind him with the rest of the cake and silverware.

Castiel narrowed his eyes at the T.V. “Several, but only a few that would be interesting to all of us. We could just continue to watch Game of Thrones, I found a movie, I don’t know if it’s interesting but it says it is a Halloween favorite, but it doesn’t appear to be about monsters.”

“Sure, whatever, let’s do the Halloween one then. Sam?” Dean shrugs.

“I don’t care,” Sam says moving around his bed to sit on the other side of Cas. He puts the cake at the end of the bed. Castiel goes back to find the movie as Sam and Dean settle. Dean gets the lights, Sam turns on the lamp on his side and Castiel grabs the candy bars, hands one to Dean then the other to Sam. Sam takes it but only to split it in half and hand the other half back.

He smiles, “I don’t really like candy.”

Dean passed the beer out and Castiel leaned back against the headboard, his shoulder pressing into Sam’s. He glances over and makes sure Sam is okay with the touch. He doesn’t move away or seems fazed at all so Cas turns back to the movie.

It was interesting and odd to Castiel but really every human movie and T.V. show was interesting and odd in some way. Dean was really getting into it it seemed. And Sam, Castiel wasn’t sure if Sam was enjoying it, because he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.

He wondered if Sam had trouble sleeping last night or maybe it was the collective exhaustion from running all day or maybe it was both. He wanted to say something to Dean. Perhaps they could have shut the movie off and leave so Sam could sleep more peacefully, but he remained quiet. He jumped surprised as Sam made his shoulder his pillow as his body gave up consciousness. He glanced at Dean who was too into the movie to notice and he turned his head slightly to look at the younger Winchester.

The boy was indeed passed out. Cas’ eyes flicked back to Dean, who still hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he did and was ignoring them, Cas wasn’t entirely sure. He remained completely still and let Sam sleep as Dean finished the rest of the movie.

If the older Winchester quizzed Cas tomorrow about it he wasn’t sure if he could answer anything beyond halfway through. It wasn’t like he was staring at or watching Sam sleep. Maybe a little but for the most part, his eyes were on the screen or on Dean. His focus and grace, however, were entirely on Sam. Aware of every breath, heartbeat, mumble, and twitch.

He was kind of disappointed when the movie ended. Dean finally looked over and his eyes widened. Castiel swallowed and whispered, “Dean, w-what should I do?”

Dean grins and Castiel was ready for his quips or teasing but Dean shrugs, gathers up the empty cake box, the pizza pan and cleared off the bed, shuts off the T.V. “You’re on your own, buddy.” He takes a moment to turn off the lamp, smirk at them and walked to the door. “Good luck,” Dean whispered and left.

Castiel continued to sit there for 26 minutes and 38 seconds when Sam started to squirm. Castiel went rigid and held the breath he didn’t need until Sam settled again.

Another six minutes and 23 seconds later he wonders if the position Sam is laying in is comfortable. He looks over slowly and doesn’t think the slouched position the tall hunter is in looks comfortable at all.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Castiel put an arm around Sam and turned towards him. His head falls from his shoulder to his chest and the hunter squirms again. Panicked Cas uses his grace to keep the hunter asleep, which disrupted him even more it seems. Sam jerked and whined and mumbled. “Cas.”

Castiel stilled and watched intently like he was waiting for Sam to open his eyes even though the hunter was too deep to wake up. Did Sam know he was right here? Maybe he recognized his grace? Maybe he’s dreaming about him? He wonders if it’s a good dream. It doesn’t look bad based on Sam’s peaceful face. Usually, when Sam had nightmares his brows would pinch together and he’d frown and flail sometimes or call out.

Cas has an impulse to look, but he doesn’t want to invade Sam’s privacy, so he continues to move the boy down the bed and into a horizontal position.

Sam’s head finally rests on his pillow… sort of. Castiel doesn’t completely understand how he got into this position with Sam. The hunter’s face was nuzzled into his neck, a long arm and leg thrown over him. One of Castiel’s arms was trapped underneath Sam, well not necessarily trapped as he _ could _ pull it out from Sam, but _ why _ would he? He didn’t want to move Sam any more than he already did and the boy seemed comfortable now, snuffling contently.

Castiel very much enjoyed this, however. He did end up moving his arm but not from underneath Sam. He slid up and into his hair. His finger carding through the soft brown waves. He vaguely wonders how Sam will react when he wakes up and finds himself sleeping half on top of him. Cas could picture Sam becomes flustered and repeatedly apologizing. He smiled at the thought, Sam Winchester really was endearing and delightful.

“You are perfect,” Cas sighs. “You never cease to amaze me.” He ran a thumb over the grooves of his necklace and closed his eyes, he hopes he could do this again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after Oct. 30. (Halloween) and later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda hate this chapter, I feel like the beginning is fine but I really hate the ending. So sorry to anyone else who hates the ending.
> 
> I wanted to go deeper into Dean and Crowley’s unexpected relationship, I was not planning that at all. I was barely planning on Castiel and Sam’s relationship, I just wanted this to be a SHORT fun fluffy birthday-themed thing, but well that’s out the window.
> 
> I feel like there are some parts that are seriously out of character. Apologies.
> 
> I might add one more chapter for the missing four hours between Sam and Castiel; and Dean and Crowley. I WANT to, but I haven't a clue how to even start, but don't hold your breath.

*** * ***

Castiel’s grace is so attuned to Sam at the moment that he knows exactly when Sam starts to wake up. It’s slow and gradual. He curls around Cas tighter and breathes in deeply and blissfully sighs Cas’ name.

Castiel smiles not expecting the boy to be so tender when he’s languid. “Good morning, Sam.” He slides his fingers up and down Sam’s arm.

Sam mumbled a morning back then his brows pinched together and his eyes opened into slits and he looks up to meet the angel’s eyes. “Cas?”

“Yes?” Ah, here it is.

Sam sits up quickly blinking rapidly, at the angel “I… I fell asleep during the movie? Did I fall asleep on you? Oh, God, I’m sorry, I-If I— You should have just woken me up, I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t. I choose to,” he says calmly, He puts a gentle hand on Sam’s arm to try and calm the hunter. Luckily it got Sam to settle so Cas could explain. “If I wanted to get up, I could have moved you, Sam. I wanted… Sam, I want you to lay back down with me.”

Sam blinks. Did he just hear him right? “What? Why?”

“I liked this. I liked laying with you. Would you lay back down with me?” Castiel tries those eyes Sam makes, puppy-dog eyes, Dean calls them. He isn’t sure if he’s making them right but Sam squirms and ducks his head a little but never breaks eye contact. “You want to cuddle with me?”

“Yes. Please, Sam?” Castiel still with the eyes, tilts his head.

“Er, uh…” Sam hesitates for a moment then flops back down. He blushes darker as Castiel shifts closer and wraps his arms around him dragging the tall Winchester even closer, almost back to how they were. Castiel dragged his fingers into Sam’s hair and Sam closes his eyes with a sigh. “Does this feel good, Sam?”

“Y-yeah.”

Castiel smiles and continues. Sam shifts closer and buries his face into his chest and his arms wrap around him. Their feet are already tangled together. Cas really likes this.

Sam falls back asleep in no time and Castiel wonders if they are going to have to repeat that Cas wanted this and Sam didn’t force him but Sam seems to have remembered their small conversation. When he rewoke He just blushes and doesn’t move away. Cas smiles and drags his fingers through Sam’s hair a couple more times. “We should really get up soon, you need to eat something.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees but neither moves away for several more minutes until Sam’s stomach grumbles and he sighs, Castiel chuckles. “Sorry,” Sam says.

“No need. Your body requires nourishment.”

Sam sighs again, then pulls away with a slight flush. He moves to his bureau and undresses down to his boxers before tugging on a pair of jeans and two layers of shirts. Cas continues to lay on Sam’s bed, watching. Sam turns and they lock eyes before Sam looks away a bit embarrassed. He rubs his neck and shuffles his feet, “Um.”

“My apologies I didn’t mean to stare nor presume that I am still allowed to lie in your bed,” Castiel sits up on the edge of the bed.

“No, uh, no, it’s okay, Cas. I’m actually… I’m kind of used to you being in my room now, so… uh, let’s just so get breakfast,” Sam darts forward and sits on the other side of the bed and starts to put his boots on. Castiel does the same.

They walk together to the kitchen. “You are courteous and considerate,” Castiel says and it makes Sam stumble. “Um… okay, thanks.”

The angel smiles at him.

“Your… you really don’t have to, y’ know, compliment me.”

“I told you I would. I know I don’t _ have _ to but I _ want _ to. Will you allow me to do that?”

“I… I’m not… you don’t need my permission to… just know that you don’t have to,” Sam shakes his head then combs his fingers through it.

They walk into the kitchen and at least Sam is surprised that all the birthday decorations are gone. Dean is cooking at the stove. Sam immediately goes for the coffee pot.

“Good morning, Dean,” Cas says and moves to sit at the table.

“Oh, hey, morning. You’re up a little late, Sam, good night, huh?” Dean wiggles his eyebrows.

“Shut up,” Sam mumbles.

Dean seems a little surprised, “Wait, did… Cas, did you stay in Sam’s room all night?”

Sam focuses on the coffee. “Yes,” the angels says truthfully. Dean chuckles awkwardly, “You, uh, you realize you could’ve just rolled him over and left anytime right? You just sat there while Sam used you as a pillow?”

“I’m actually gonna go for my jog right now,” Sam blurts and rushes out and takes his cup of coffee with him.

“He shouldn’t run on an empty stomach,” Cas comments.

“Cas!” Dean hisses.

“Yes?”

“You spent the night in Sam’s room?”

“Yes.” Castiel tilts his head.

“And?”

“And?” Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean.

“And he was totally cool with it? He freak out? What?”

“He… He apologized for… ‘using me as a pillow,’ I told him I knew I could have moved him off of me but I wanted to lie with him and… he let me. Why?”

“So, you guys dating or something now?”

“No, Sam and I are not in a relationship.”

Dean looks disappointed and vaguely annoyed, “Seriously?” He rubs his forehead.

“I… I don’t understand, what-what’s the matter?”

“What _ I _ don’t understand is why you two aren’t fricking dating yet, Sam’s had a damn crush on you for-for- basically since the kid met you and… Do _ you _ like Sam?”

“I… yes.”

“In a romantic and/or sexual sense, Cas, not as a damn friend or brotherly way.”

Cas rubs the back of his head, “I… Yes, I-I can see Sam and I in a relationship.”

“Then how is it that you and Sam are not together? Seriously, you two are slowest, blindest, oblivious people I’ve ever known.”

“Y-you think Sam has feelings for me?”

“Seriously? Like I said blindest and oblivious. Yes, yes, he totally has feelings for you, Cas.”

Castiel looks at the doorway. “Go fucking tell him before I lose my damn mind,” Dean huffed.

Cas turns back to Dean and glares, “As long as you tell Crowley about your own feelings.”

Dean jerked, “What? I- no, I don’t…” Castiel continues to glare and Dean stood stiffly. “Fine. I’ll talk to Crowley if you talk to Sam. Damn it, how the hell do you even know?”

“I guess I am not as blind as you thought I am. I believe Sam is also aware.”

“Shit.”

“Oh and Dean?”

“What?”

“Your bacon is burning.”

“Fuck!” Dean rushes over and snaps the stove off and moves the pan to the back. “It’s still edible,” he mumbled.

“I doubt Sam will actually come back and eat after his run.”

“Yeah, I’ll put some on a plate and you can argue with him about eating it when he comes back.

“Alright.” Castiel realized this was the perfect time to tell Dean about the necklaces since Sam wasn’t here. “We should buy one for Sam too.”

“Buy what?” Dean looks over and Castiel held out his dog tag. Dean smirks. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Already purchased this morning, just gotta wait until it ships to our P.O. box. Then we can pick it up and give it to Sam.”

Dean wrapped up a plate and Cas waited. Sam immediately jumped into the shower when he came back then settled in the library with his laptop. So Castiel took the opportunity and approached him after he reheated the plate.

“Sam.”

The hunter looks up from his laptop. “Hey, Cas, what’s up?” his cheeks turned a slight pink as he smiles at the angel.

Castiel sets down the plate on the table then sits next to Sam knocking their knees together. Sam doesn’t move away so Cas leaves his leg. “Here is your breakfast from this morning,” Cas pushed it closer Sam. Sam gives him a smile but pushes it away. “Thanks, Cas, I’ll eat it later.”

Castiel knows he won’t. He pushes it closer to Sam again and stares at the boy. After an entire minute of staring at each other, Sam sighed and shoves his computer away, draws the plate closer and picks at the eggs.

“You were hungry this morning, I heard your stomach, why aren’t you hungry now?”

Sam shrugs, “I ate a protein bar.”

Cas shakes his head, “I can make something else if you’d like.”

“This is fine.”

“You’re still not eating. You’re just picking at it.”

“Sorry.”

Cas sighs, “I talked with Dean and he thinks I should relay some information to you.”

“What information? A hunt?”

“No, I, um… I would like to start a relationship with you.”

Sam looks at him, wide-eyed and surprised. Now Castiel can’t look at him. “A-as a lover… But I would never force you into such a thing. If I've made you uncomfortable, I apologize, I can leave if you want.”

Sam put the fork down. “NO! No, sorry, no, I— you didn’t— that was— um, I— yes.”

“Yes?”

“I, uh—” Sam’s face is bright red at the quick answer. “Um…”

“Was Dean right when he said you had feelings for me, Sam?”

“Y-yeah, sorry.”

“When? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Sam ducks his head, “I… I didn’t want to mess everything up… just in case you didn’t like me. I didn’t want you to hate me or make things awkward. I never suspected you’d… I never thought of this as a real possibility.”

“How long?”

“A-a while. Couple of years.”

“Sam,” Castiel hisses, he wishes Sam told him. He sighs, “It doesn’t matter anymore, I know now. Do you wish to have a relationship with me, Sam?” Sam nods.

“I want you to look at me in the eyes and tell me. This is serious.”

Sam looks up, eyes determined and bright. “I am serious. I— I _ want _ a relationship with you, Cas.”

Castiel nods, “Good. I don’t know much about human courting to be honest.”

Sam laughs, “You don’t need to court me, Cas. We can stay the same, except well…”

Cas had little warning. Sam’s eyes flicked down to look at his lips before returning to his eyes then he quickly leaned forward, eyes shut, head tilted slightly and brushed their lips together before sitting back. He blushes darkly and squirms as he searches for any anger or disgust on the angel’s face. “Except the obvious stuff that comes with being boyfriends. If you want,” he finishes.

Overcoming his initial shock on Sam’s boldness. Castiel’s lips are tingling and warm and his grace is bubbling inside him, heating his skin more. He huffs and pouts. “I don’t think that was appropriate, Sam. I want a redo.”

Sam laughed, then bit his bottom lip before leaning back toward Castiel for a slower, more passionate kiss.

Castiel leaned forward too, copying Sam’s tilt and closing his eyes. He rests his right arm on the back of Sam’s chair as his left cupped Sam’s jaw. He wondered vaguely who felt warmer; himself or Sam. He can hear Sam’s heart thundering in his chest and knows his own is beating fast too. He feels a bit ridiculous and human but is distracted by Sam’s bold tongue that darts out and swipes at his bottom lip.

Castiel gasps surprised then moans as Sam’s hands find their way onto him. One curled itself into Cas’ shirt, pulling and tugging him, trying to get him closer, but he’s already on the edge of his seat and Sam is too. His other hand settled on top of his thigh, squeezing lightly, a heavy warm weight and Cas wants his hands on Sam too, so his right un-grips the chair and buries itself in Sam’s hair while the one on Sam’s jaw, slides down his face and over his shoulder.

Sam pulls away first and Cas realizes it’s because he needs to breath. He flushed and panting, his hot breath wafts over Cas’ face and he wants Sam to lean back in and kiss him again.

“About fucking time,” Dean says. Sam jumps further away from Cas and looks up at his brother in the doorway. Dean grins, Sam blushes darker and Cas frowns. “What do you want, Dean,” he huffs.

Dean rolls his eyes, hearing the irritation in the angel’s voice. “Sorry, I ruined your moment to get into my brother’s pants, Cas, but one, you’re in the library, public space, and two, we have shit to do today.”

“H-he wasn’t— we weren’t—!”

“Save it, Sammy. Let’s just get out, go shopping, get Cas’ new ID and come back and you two can go at it like rabbits—”

“Dean!” Sam hisses.

“—and I can bleach my brain with a lot of alcohol and go on a monster movie binge.”

Sam huffs and shuts his book and gets up. “Ah, ah,” Dean tuts, “You eat at least half of that, then we go.”

“Dean—”

“I will shove it down your throat, Sam, and I’ll make Cas hold you down while I do it.”

Sam glares at Dean then drops back down into the seat and stabs the pancakes.

“Maybe you should take the opportunity to ‘get into Crowley’s pants,’” Castiel retorts, a bit disappointed he and Sam have to stop but he has a feeling that they are going to be kissing a lot more often, so it makes up for it.

“What?” Sam says, looking between him and Dean. “Are you, finally?”

“Shut up,” Dean hisses. Sam laughs, finally take a bite of eggs, winces, but he starts shoveling it into his mouth quickly.

“Just remember who set you up, bitch.”

“I-I could’ve…” Sam says after he swallows.

“Yeah right,” Dean rolls his eyes.

“There half, can we go now?” Sam gets to his feet, ”I’m gonna go get my jacket.” Dean hums.

Castiel looks down at himself, he’s still wearing the black shirt with the blue wings. “I should also go change.”

“Yeah, change, right,” Dean says. Cas could tell it was sarcastic but didn’t understand why. He raised a brow and Dean rolled his eyes, “Just hurry up.” Cas followed Sam while Dean picked up Sam’s plate to dump it in the kitchen.

Sam and Castiel almost run into each other. Sam coming out of his room while Cas was going in. Cas grabs Sam’s arms to keep him steady, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, yeah, uh, thanks.”

Cas smiles then walked around him to change into his white button-down and his coats.

“Is this payback?” Castiel wonders, smiling as he turned around to face Sam who fidgeted in the doorway.

“W-what?”

“You’re watching me change so I asked if this is payback from when I was watching you this morning?”

“N-no, sorry, that’s not, sorry.”

“It’s alright, Sam. I don’t mind you watching me. I was just… teasing.”

Sam huffed a laugh, “Okay,” but he leaned against the doorframe and stared at his boots.

“Is something wrong, Sam?” Castiel asked becoming concerned for the hunter. He walked over adjusting his trench collar.

“No? Uh, not really, just… Were you serious?” Sam peeked up and caught his eyes.

“About what?”

Sam squirmed, laughed nervously. “About… us. Are we… are we dating right now?”

Castiel nods, “Yes, I believe we are. Are you… are you having second thoughts?”

“No! No, of course not. I was just— I was— I wanted to make sure.”

Cas nods again, smiles, relaxing. He didn’t remember tensing up. “Good,” he says and turns back around to go back to the bed to put on his new bee tie. He moves back to the door, back to Sam when he’s finished tying it.

Sam laughs amused and steps in close and adjusts his tie. Castiel tilts his head up to give his beloved space and smiles. “You are beautiful Sam. I regret not voicing my admiration of you earlier.”

Sam looks a little surprised then ducks his head, “Uh, t-thanks, but it’s okay if you don’t-didn’t.”

“I enjoy making you squirm.”

Sam laughs, amusement and ardor. “That’s pretty bold, Cas, maybe later.”

“Oh!” He realizes he just hinted at sex. “I didn’t— my apologies.” Sam laughs, cups Cas’ cheek and bends down to kiss him lightly, “I know.”

“I enjoy kissing you,” Castiel whispers when Sam pulled away slightly, resting his forehead against his lover, eyes still closed. Sam smiles, “I do too.”

Cas moves his hand up Sam’s chest and cups the back of his head, “We should go, Dean is probably angry by now.”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckles, but they still don’t move. Sam’s eyes open into slits and they stare at each for a moment. Castiel can’t help but lean back in to kiss this incredible man before him.

“About fricking time,” Dean groans as they arrive in the garage. There is no anger or impatience in his voice, so Sam laughs. “I blame Cas,” he says playfully.

“Me? You took several minutes straightening my tie,” Cas replied.

“It was crooked,” Sam says.

“It’s always crooked,” Dean rolls his eyes.

Cas pouts looking down at it. Not always.

*** * ***

They stop to make Cas’ ID first, then head to the store to go shopping. Castiel smiles down at his new ID in his hands. _ Castiel Winchester. _ “If Sam and I get married I could legally be a Winchester. And have a marriage license with our names on it.”

“What, marriage? You two are thinking about marrying now?” Dean chokes. “I wanted you two to get together quickly but didn’t you two just start dating like this morning?”

“We-we haven’t talked about— Do you want to get married, Cas?” Sam turns around in his seat.

Castiel tilts his head, “I’ve never thought about it until now, but yes, it sounds very nice. Of course, ideally we should date for a while before thinking about marriage, it was just a thought. I’m sorry to alarm you both. I am very happy with this ID. I want to thank you again.”

“Seriously, Cas,” Dean rolls his eyes, “No need to thank us. You’re part of this family. Some card or a piece of paper isn’t going to change that.” Sam smiles and Cas can’t help but lean forward over the seat to kiss Sam. Dean grunts, “Not in the car.” Sam laughs.

They get stuck in the Halloween section of the store when Dean can’t decide what bag of candy we wants. “I thought you wanted to wait until after Halloween, y’ know when the candy is cheaper?”

“Not anymore, I need candy if I’m gonna be up all night watching horror movies.”

“What happened to Crowley?” Sam smirked.

“What happened to shutting up?”

Castiel is at the other end of the aisle looking at costumes, he raises an eyebrow at the indecent angel outfit then continues. “Humans complain about the cold but some of these costumes are inadequate for it being almost winter.”

The brothers join him, Dean puts two bags of candy in the cart Sam’s pushing. “Hey, look, Sammy, they got princesses, too bad they aren’t your size,” Dean smirks. Sam rolls his eyes, “What do we need here anyways?”

“Coffee… again,” Dean eyes his brother, Sam looks away. “Toilet paper, pumpkin pie—”

“But you’re getting candy,” Sam says looking back at his brother.

“So?”

Sam rolls his eyes again. “I’m running out of shampoo and conditioner too. Cas, did you want to buy a sun lamp for your cacti?”

“Yes, I’d like that.”

“Okay, here, Dean, you take the cart. Cas and I are gonna go to the gardening section, I’ll text you when we’re done and looking for you.”

“Alright.”

They split up and Dean finished his shopping without any texts from Sam. He loaded the cart with more stuff than he was planning and still no text. He found himself in the Health and Beauty aisle scrutinizing the bottles of shampoo and conditioner he knows Sam buys for twenty minutes before cursing Sam and throwing in a random pair.

He checks his phone and still no texts from Sam. _ Are they still in the Garden section? _ And he found them, Sam conversing with a worker, a shopping basket in hand with more items than he needed, while Castiel has another plant in his hands, bent over studying the other potted plants nearby. The angel turns and says something and Sam grins and nods.

Dean gets close enough to hear the worker say, “You’re such a cute couple.”

“Yeah, they’re adorable when they don’t get lost in the gardening section for an hour.”

“Dean,” Sam says surprised, “Oh, man, sorry. We were—”

“Getting lost, yeah, I actually ended up in the car section and bought more food and snacks than I was planning on. Are we ready? We’re taking too long here.”

“I think so. Cas?”

“Yes, I am ready,” the angel walked over a potted plant in each hand.

“I can ring you up over here if you want,” the worker says, gesturing the cash register in the corner.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Dean says.

Castiel was insistent that he paid for the purple-flowered potted plant himself, then Dean pushed Sam away and paid for everything else.

“I could have paid for the gardening stuff myself,” he pouted.

“It’s a waste of time, Sam. I’m not waiting for each of us to ring out, doing it in one go is easier and quicker,” Dean explained. “Just load the cart.”

*** * ***

They stopped for lunch before heading home. Castiel held his plants on the way home until Dean pulled into the garage. “Can you please carry the flowers for me, Sam?”

“Uh, sure, Cas.” They carefully switched hands and Cas went to help Dean with the other bags. He carried most of the bags inside himself, setting them down on the kitchen table. Then looked through them to find the wall lamp and Fluorescent lightbulbs the worker, Jordan, suggested.

Cas tried to help Dean put everything away. “You and Sam can just go set up your fake sun lamp,” Dean waved him off. “I got this.”

“It’s okay, Dean, I can wait.”

“I got it, go,” Dean waves his hand dismissively.

“Are you sure?” Sam says.

“Yeah, go, I got this.”

“Okay,” Sam says, but he’s still hesitant. Cas picks up the new plants and Sam grabbed their bags and followed Cas out.

He chuckles as the angel walks quickly, “You really are excited, aren't you?” Castiel grins back at Sam.

They stop at Sam’s room. “I left the cacti in your room.”

Castiel goes over to grab them then pauses. “But what about your plant?”

“Mine?”

“Yes, the one I bought at the store, the African violet, I got it for you,” Castiel held the purple-flowered plant out to Sam. “Oh, uh, thank you. I can just keep it with yours, can’t I? It’ll give me an excuse to come into your room,” Sam smirks.

“You don’t need an excuse to come into my room. Your welcome any time. Maybe we should…” Cas looks at Sam’s shelf.

“Y-you want to keep them in here?”

“If you’d allow me.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Sam looks around his room, it was just as bare and basic as Cas’. “I already have some of your stuff in here, why don’t you, uh… Do you just wanna share?”

“I don’t want to take over your room, Sam.”

“You wouldn’t. We’d be sharing.” Sam shrugs. “You can put your clothes in my bureau, put our plants on my shelf. Honestly, I think you’ve been in my room more often than your own. Of course, your room can still be yours, just most of your stuff will be in mine, or it’ll actually be ours if you agree.”

“I like the idea of us sharing a room,” Castiel says. “Lovers move in together.”

Sam ducks his head and huffs a laugh. “Yeah.”

They line up the plants on the shelf and he and Cas have a bit of trouble with hanging up the lamp on the wall above the plants, but, finally, hours later it’s hanging sturdily up shining down on the flowers. Castiel checks each one and waters the ones he deems needed water.

He stepped back and smiles up at Sam. “You’re a wonder,” he says. Sam blinks surprised and smiles warmly at him. “You’re amazing,” he says.

Castiel threads their fingers together. “I wanted to speak to you earlier.”

“What about?”

“When Dean caught us kissing in the library, he said… he said something like ‘getting into your pants.’ That was a hint at sex, wasn’t it?”

Sam laughed awkwardly, “Yeah, it was. What about it?”

“I, um, I wanted you to know that was not my intention. I would like a deeper relationship with you, Sam. Maybe a sexual one but I… I was hoping we could… wait? I don’t want to rush or push you—“ Cas said quickly.

“Hey, woah, it’s okay, Cas. I get it. Me too.” Sam squeezes Cas’ fingers. “I don’t— I’m not like Dean, this isn’t about that kind of intimacy. I also think we should wait. Um, but is… kissing?”

Castiel looks a bit relieved. He honestly doesn’t know much about human relationships and he doesn’t have a lot of sexual experiences. He knows being with Sam will be _ much much _ different from when he was with April, the reaper who killed him that one time. Even kissing Sam now is different from her and Meg. He really didn’t want to mess this up.

“Kissing is great. I love kissing you,” Cas grins then steps closer and shows Sam how much he enjoys it. Sam is breathless when they pull away. He laughs, then kisses him again, slower, basically a press of lips. “You wanna go binge-watch horror Halloween movies with Dean? Then bail at midnight to cuddle till morning?”

“That means I can hold you all night, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, yes, that sounds wonderful.”

Sam laughed and they kiss again. Still slowly, but deeper, passionate. A bit of tongue and teeth.

They walk to Dean’s room hand in hand.

“Yeah?” Dean shouts as someone knocks on his door.

Sam peeks in, “Can we join you?”

“Do you smell like sex?”

“We don’t— we didn’t— Can we just join you?” Sam glared.

“Yeah, sure,” Dean shrugs but he’s happy for the company, especially if it’s his brother and/or his best friend. Sam opens the door wider and Dean noticed their entwined fingers but doesn’t mention it.

They let go as Sam nudges his way onto Dean’s bed to sit shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Cas rolls Dean’s desk chair over to sit beside Sam.

“Are you watching—”

“Beetlejuice, yeah.”

“I was expecting more gore, more thrasher.”

Dean shrugs, “Off and on.”

Sam grabs a small handful of popcorn, Dean always made it too buttery and salty, when his brother held it out.

“It actually just started like fifteen minutes ago.” Dean passed down two beers. Sam takes them and passes one to Cas.

“What happened, you two chicken out?”

Sam rolls his eyes, “One, since when do you want to hear about my sex life and two, shut up, we didn’t start dating just for the sex.”

“We decided we weren’t ready yet,” Cas says.

Dean hums, “Good for you, both of you.”

“You’re being surprisingly very supportive Dean,” Sam says.

“It’s not surprising at all. Cas is good for you, Sammy, your happy, I want this to work for you both.”

“Thanks, Dean. I hope Crowley works for you too. You have talked to him, haven’t you?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to watch,” Dean deflects.

“You’ve seen this like a billion times,” Sam counters.

“Cas hasn’t.”

“You promised that if I talk to Sam you will talk to Crowley,” Castiel says.

“And I will, but not tonight.”

“Dean, we both know that we get tons of cases from monsters who were stupid enough to binge on Halloween, so your next excuse is “We’re too busy” so if you don’t, I am going to call Crowley and I will tell him you like him.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Dean snapped, glaring at his brother.

“Wouldn’t I? I mean you told Cas about mine. I’m just saying it’s fair game,” Sam shrugs.

“I’ll tell him when I tell him. I don’t need you or Cas _ helping _ me. Did you come in here to hound me or watch T.V.?”

“Both?” Sam shrugged.

“Well, now we can focus on watching.”

Sam rolled his eyes but dropped it and they watched T.V. Just as they planned Sam and Cas bailed around midnight.

Sam was pretty glad he had Cas to cuddle with because the last movie was a bit gory for him. He really hoped his mind didn’t twist everything and he ended up with Cage nightmares. That would put a drag on his and the Angels cuddle time.

He never really found out because he didn’t remember dreaming but he thinks that might have something to do with his angelic boyfriend who snuggled with him all night.

He was woken up with a goodmorning kiss and a compliment.

*** * ***

It doesn’t take long for them to find several cases. Vampires, a ghoul, werewolves, more vampires, a couple of ghosts. Back to back hunts. They decided that they’d take one more hunt before heading back home for a small break.

Several people were maliciously slaughtered several hours away from Lebanon. It could have been one of their jobs, or it could have been some crazy human. It was close to home so they decided to take it.

They impersonated FBI agents and found out that there was sulfur at the scene.

“Wow, that’s perfect,” Sam says.

“What is? A demon going on a killing spree?”

“Yeah,” Sam winces, “well, kind of. It’s a demon, so we should just call Crowley, ask him to take care of it, and you can tell him you like him.”

“No,” Dean says.

“No for calling him or no you’re not telling him?”

“I haven’t decided, but definitely no on the second one.”

“I don’t understand you two, why would you hide that you have feelings for someone?” Cas hisses. He’s been on edge since Sam almost got his neck torn out by the second batch of vampires, last week.

“You did it too,” Dean snaps back.

“Hello, boys.” Sam, Dean, and Castiel turn and see Crowley, amused.

“Douchebag,” Dean says.

“My, my, Squirrel, my feelings.”

Sam rolls his eyes, “How’d you know we were here?”

“I heard the Winchesters were in town, dropped in to say hello.”

“Cut the theatrics, Crowley, one of your stupid demons are killing people,” Dean says.

“Yes, they usually get so uppity during this time of year. I wonder why that is. I’ll take care of it. Anything else?”

“That’s it?” Sam says, raising a brow. “No deal? No dramatics? Just ‘I’ll handle it’ and asking for more?”

“What can I say, Moose, you two are so polite. I already know what demon you’re referring to, that’s why I’m here.”

“Okay, great, well Dean has something to tell you,” Sam pats Dean on the back.

“Sam!” Dean snarls

“Come on, Cas, let’s give them some privacy.” Castiel turns and follows Sam.

“Is something different between Moose and Feathers or is it just my imagination?”

Dean rolls his eyes, “Yeah, they’re a thing now.”

“Oh, wonderful, now we have to watch them become heartfelt and starry-eyed. I can’t tell if that’s worse than the lustful tension and wayward looks or not.”

Dean snorts, “Trust me, it’s worse because the tension and the looks have not ended.”

“So, Dean, what do you need to tell me?”

“What? Nothing, Sam was just being a little bitch. You can leave.”

“Hmm. You do realize I’m the king of lies and debauchery? Dean Winchester, do you have a passing fancy for me?”

“Wow, I knew you were self-centered but—”

“Cut the crap. You’re not that hard to figure out, I’ve known for a while.”

“That’s— I’m not— Why didn’t you say something if you knew?”

“I was wondering how you’d tell me. I was kinda disappointed and not at all surprised when you kept it to yourself for this long.”

“And?”

Crowley raised a brow.

“What’s your answer? Just fucking tell me already, I promise I won’t kill you over it.”

Crowley smirked, “Oh, Squirrel, your so passionate. I never took you for a romantic.”

“Seriously, Crowley. I don’t _ do _ relationships, never really have. But I _ want _ this with you. I don’t understand it at all, I gave Sam all kinds of shit for getting with a demon and now I can’t stop thinking about you and… Just hurry up and drop me.”

“Who says I was going to say no?”

“Just tell me and before you answer I don’t want any of that one-night stand or cheating shit either. It’s you and me, that’s it. No demon orgies, no side-pieces, no multiple lovers. If that’s too much just say it now.”

Crowley rocked back on his heels, amused, “Just you and me.”

“That a yes?”

“Yeah, darling, that’s a yes. We gonna kiss now or have some major sex escapade?”

“This isn’t a deal, I’m not selling you my soul.”

“Of course not. If it was I would have said, you know I’m not that sleazy of a businessman anymore. My deals are outright.”

“Then yeah, let’s have some major sex escapade and make out,” Dean grins.

*** * ***

“Dude, where have you been? It’s been like four hours.” Sam says when Dean returns to their motel room.

“I don’t kiss and tell, Sammy.”

Sam’s eyebrow shot up, “So you and Crowley?”

Dean cleared his voice, “Yeah. It worked out.”

“Good. You deserve that, Dean.”

Dean rubbed the back of his head, “Yeah, thanks, Sam, uh, I just wanted to, um… I was really hard on you when… y’ know, with Ruby and I ended up…”

“Don’t be. Ruby and Crowley are different. She just wanted to manipulate me and whatever. Crowley actually kind of likes us. He likes you. Things are different now.”

“Yeah… I still wanted to tell you, y’ know, sorry.”

“We’re good.”

“Where’s Cas?” Dean sits on his bed, looks around.

“Went to grab dinner, I stayed back because you didn’t call or text me. Should’ve known you’d forget all about me and Cas as soon as you hooked up.”

Dean laughs, “You know I wouldn’t forget about you, little brother, well, not for very long at least.” He relaxed against the headboard. He snorts, “Can you imagine what Dad would do if he saw us now?”

“Probably check if we were possessed then cursed then would probably kill us.”

“You with an angel, me with a demon. Who knew.”

“Our lives are weird, man. If someone told us that years ago we’d have beat the shit out of them.”

Dean laughs, “Right?”

The door opens and Cas walks in with two bags. “Dean, you’re finally back. May I assume that you and Crowley went well?”

Dean shot up, “Yeah. We hooked up. You and Sam, me and Crowley.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Man, I’m starving, please tell me you got something for me.”

The angel nodded, “Of course, burger, fries, and a pie.”

“You’re amazing,” Dean snatched up the bag Castiel held out to him.

Sam got up from his bed too to join Dean at the small table. Cas was already unpacking Sam’s dinner opposite from Dean. “I bought a side of fries for your salad, Sam, since you tend to steal Dean’s. Did either of you need drinks?”

“Thanks, Cas, but seriously you don’t need to cater to us. Did you buy something for yourself?”

“Yes, a burger.”

“Let’s share the fries then,” Sam moved the small container of fries between them. And they all eat contently. Dean was devouring his pie when Crowley popped in. “Hello, Darling, I brought Craig.” Crowley held up the bottle.

“Sweet, guess you don’t have to get drinks, after all, Cas.” Crowley snaps and suddenly there are four glasses and the demon pours.

“An angel, a demon, and two brothers having a drink sounds like the start of a bad joke,” Dean snorts, raising his glass in a toast. Sam laughs and clinks his with Dean’s. Castiel and Crowley raise theirs before drinking too.


End file.
